You’ve probably seen, or at least heard of, the Hoarders show. These are people who have become so attached to their stuff that they can’t bear to let it go or throw it away. It gets so bad in many cases on the show that the houses are not safe to live in. Garbage fills the whole house. There is no place to sleep, much less eat or prepare food every day. Often the toilets don’t work and the refrigerators are full of spoiled and moldy food.
It’s so bad that it requires an intervention like the one done with addicts. Mental health professionals are called. However, as bad as it may seem to those of us who are not hoarders, they don’t think there is anything wrong. They can’t see that having piles of clothes, books, furniture and God knows what else stacked to the ceiling in every room is unhealthy at best. It is potentially life threatening. Some houses have been really unsafe to be in.
What does this have to do with goal setting?
We can accumulate more than physical things. We can also accumulate mental baggage. When it comes to mental baggage, we don’t even realize it. Mental baggage is the junk we carry around in our heads that isn’t true anymore, or never was, or is something we can’t control and shouldn’t even try. Mental baggage is what occupies our mind and prevents us from reaching our Goals, or even working on them.
For example, we might be worried about our work. What happens if I get fired? Why does the boss hate me? What am I going to do wrong today? This kind of baggage is the worst, because it’s not even about things we can control or things that will happen. It’s about what could happen. These are things that are most likely not going to happen as well.
Sure, sometimes we should worry about our jobs. Sometimes we should worry about what others are going to do. Sometimes we have to worry about things that can go wrong.
Sometimes. Only sometimes.
We must plan for the possibilities, but not worry about the unlikely events that we cannot control. It’s hard to do that. I understand. I have to remind myself of this all the time.
We also tend to dwell too much on “what if.” What would happen if I did this? What would happen if my spouse did that? What would happen if I win the lottery?
Then there are the “why did I do that” thoughts. Why did I do that? Why did I buy that expensive car? Why did I say that to my son? Self-recrimination doesn’t help. The self-assessment is Asking why without really looking for a real answer isn’t helpful. Asking why when you’re trying to fix something is much better.
We care. We fantasize about what will not happen as if it did. We live in the past blaming ourselves over and over again for things we may not control.
All this prevents us from working on our Goals. We cannot dedicate mental energy to achieving goals if we spend it all on mental disorder. These thoughts can dominate our mind and keep us paralyzed. They keep us looking back and forth without learning anything or fixing anything.
Both setting and achieving goals require an enormous amount of physical AND mental energy. We may be physically fit and well, but if our mental energy has been drained by mental clutter, our efforts will be less than optimal. Our results will be even worse. Which, of course, will further drain our mental energy.
Mental hoarding WILL KILL your Goal achievement deadlier than you can imagine.
How do you get over it then?
Just like in the Hoarders program, you have to get rid of what is not important, essential, useful or not working in your mind. This means getting rid of limiting beliefs. It means getting rid of unproductive or negative thought habits. It means getting rid of things that hurt you instead of helping you.
By ordering our minds, we discard what holds us back. We changed our focus. We learn to let go of what we don’t need and replace it with things we should be working on. However, we still have to keep certain things. We should worry about our job if we have it. We should care enough to work hard and well. We should care enough that getting fired is unthinkable. We should care about what we say and do to the extent that it affects others. We should care about how we treat others. We must learn from our mistakes, not relive them over and over again.
Once we get our minds in order, we have the mental energy to keep going. We have the mental energy to do our best to achieve our Goals. We have the mental energy to attack what needs to be done instead of giving up before we even start.
